Tom Brady directed the Patriots to a win on Sunday in Minnesota. (Getty Images)

From the moment Tom Brady took the podium after his first win of the 2014 season, it was apparent he wasn’t in a particularly good mood.

Brady completed 15-of-22 passes for 149 yards and nine-yard TD pass to Julian Edelman in a 30-7 win over the Vikings in Minnesota. His quarterback rating was 102.3, the first time over 100 since last December against the Texans. He didn’t throw an interception and was sacked just once.

Still, Brady seemed upset with the lack of rhythm in the offense, partly reflected in a conversion rate of just 5-for-14 on third down.

“I’m happy we won,” Brady said. “I just wish we’d go out there and play like we’re capable. That’s just the way it is. I’m glad we won, great team win, a lot of guys contributed, a lot of great plays were made. Hopefully, offensively, we can do a better job next week.

“I think we have a lot of work to do. It’s good to win. We’ll get back to work [Monday].”

Brady gave props to the offensive line that did a much better job in pass protection and opened holes for Stevan Ridley to rush for 101 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries.

“Some great running, great blocking up front,” Brady said. “He always runs really hard. We were really close on some runs to breaking some longer ones but that was really important for us to run the ball like that. We’re going to need that all season.

Stevan Ridley led the New England ground game in Sunday’s win. (Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

After a shocking loss to the Dolphins in Miami in the season-opener, the Patriots bounced back nicely Sunday against the Vikings, coming away with a 30-7 win.

Tom Brady finished 15-for-22 for 149 yards and one touchdown. Julian Edelman had six catches for 81 yards and one touchdown. On the ground, Stevan Ridley had 25 carries for 101 yards and a touchdown and Shane Vereen added six rushes for 40 yards.

In addition, Chandler Jones had a pair of sacks to go along with a blocked field goal and return for a touchdown (58 yards) just before the end of the first half.

On the other side of the ball, Matt Cassel was 19-for-35 for 202 yards with one touchdown and four picks. He was sacked six times. In addition, Matt Asiata had 13 carries for 36 yards and five catches for 48 yards.

Here are 10 things we learned about the Patriots on Sunday:

It was a much better week for Tom Brady and the offense, particularly down the stretch.

The Patriots were a team of two halves in the opener last week against the Dolphins, with an impressive start and a lousy finish. But on Sunday against the Vikings, New England was able to put together an impressive 60-minute performance, dominating in all areas. That included the work of the quarterback, who was in command throughout, getting more than enough time to throw (we’ll get into more of the reasons why shortly) and making impressive hookups with Edelman and Rob Gronkowski.

Chandler Jones had a really impressive bounceback game.

It wasn’t just the blocked field goal and touchdown on the return shortly before the end of the first half. The defensive end was able to get good pressure throughout the afternoon on Cassel, helping cave in the pocket and making life difficult for the Minnesota passing game for much of the day. Jones had two sacks (Dont’a Hightower added two, while Rob Ninkovich and Kyle Arrington added one each) and was able to display the sort of consistency the Patriots are craving from his spot going forward.

The Patriots coach and Turner go back almost 20 years, but one thing that’s been pretty constant over the seasons is the fact that more often than not, Belichick knows how to beat a Turner-led offense. Belichick improved his personal mark against Turner to 11-2 (that’s since he took over the Patriots prior to the 2000 season). The last time Turner got the better if Belichick was October 2008 when Turner was the head coach of the Chargers and Cassel was quarterbacking New England. (Overall, it’s a three-game winning streak for Belichick.)

The cornerback had his first pick in a New England uniform, coming away with a second-quarter ball on a Cassel attempt for Greg Jennings. (For what it’s worth, Revis apparently told the TV broadcast crew on Saturday night that he was going to be with Jennings all day. We’ll need to take a closer look at the all-22 film when it is released, but that appeared to be the case.) An extremely unscientific look at his afternoon revealed three passes in his direction, with one interception and no completions. Over the course of his career, when Revis comes away with an interception, his teams are 19-3.Read the rest of this entry »

The Patriots and Vikings have played two quarters out in the Twin Cities, and New England holds a 24-7 lead.

The Patriots turned a pair of interceptions from Matt Cassel into touchdowns and got a blocked field goal (and defensive touchdown) from Chandler Jones to help with the lead. Tom Brady is 9-for-10 for 105 yards and a touchdown, while Julian Edelman has five catches for 69 yards and a touchdown.

Meanwhile, Matt Cassel is 12-for-20 for 144 yards with one touchdown and two picks, and Cordarrelle Patterson added three catches for 39 yards.

Here are a few quick notes:

The Vikings got started in style with a 7-play, 80-yard drive, one that took 4:06 and ended with a really impressive pass play from Cassel to Matt Asiata. Over the course of the first drive, it was clear the defensive focus was on Patterson — New England bit hard on a couple of play fakes, allowing Cassel to hit on some impressive connections with Asiata and tight end Kyle Rudolph.

That momentum started to change a few minutes later when Devin McCourty provided a spark for the New England defense, picking off a deep ball from Cassel (on a pass play intended for Jarius Wright) and returning it to the 1-yard line. Two plays later, Stevan Ridley punched it in for his first rushing touchdown of the season to tie the game at seven midway through the first quarter.

New England then followed that up with another good defensive stand, forcing the Vikes into a 3-and-out with some good play in first and second down. The Patriots couldn’t punch it into the end zone, but ended up posting three more points when Stephen Gostkowski knocked home a 48-yard field goal (after a 10-play, 40-yard drive) to make it 10-7 just before the end of the first quarter.

After Darrelle Revis picked off his first pass of the season, the Patriots turned it around with a 7-play, 61-yard drive that included 59 receiving yards from Edelman and was capped off by a 9-yard pass from Brady to Edelman to make it 17-7 midway through the second quarter.

The Patriots then put the capper on the second quarter with a blocked field goal attempt from Jones — then, the big defensive end scooped it up and ran it all the way back for a touchdown to finish the scoring just before the end of the half.

A logjam at wide receiver combined with the healthy return of Aaron Dobson has landed Kenbrell Thompkins on the inactive list for the Patriots’ Week 2 contest against the Vikings.

Also inactive for the Patriots Sunday are cornerback Alfonzo Dennard, Michael Buchanan, Jamie Collins, Zach Moore, Ryan Wendell and running back James White.

Buchanan (ankle), Collins (thigh) and Wendell (knee) were all ruled out Saturday night for various injuries.

Trainers were spotted looking at Dennard’s shoulder pregame Sunday in Minnesota, and that combined with the fact that he was having trouble finishing tackles in the second half against Miami is an indication of a possible injury issue, though Dennard was not listed on the Patriots’ injury report this week.

Dennard recorded his first interception of the season last week in the first half of the season opener against the Dolphins.

Sunday’s inactives mean defensive lineman Chris Jones, wide receiver Aaron Dobson and offensive lineman Bryan Stork are in line to make their season debuts.

As for the Vikings, running back Adrian Peterson is inactive after turning himself in after his arrest on child injury chargers on Friday. Quarterback Christian Ponder is also inactive, meaning rookie Teddy Bridgewater is the backup behind Matt Cassel. Also inactive are linebackers Michael Mauti and Brandon Watts, center David Yankey, wide receiver Rodney Smith and defensive end Scott Crichton.

Join Pete Davidson of WEEI.com and Rotobahn.com for a live Fantasy Football chat, starting at 11 a.m. Get all your questions in as Davidson offers advice as to how you should set your lineup for Week 2.

2. From a procedural perspective, it’s important to note the NFL constitution requires a three-quarters majority of owners (24 of 32) to terminate the contract of a commissioner, and at this point, that seems highly unlikely. We examined the deep and abiding relationship between Goodell and Patriots owner Robert Kraft here, and despite any possible misunderstandings between the two, it would seem unlikely that Kraft would change his stance on someone he has grown very cozy with over the years. From a league perspective, many of the NFL’s most prominent owners have already given on-the-record backing to Goodell, including Giants co-owner John Mara (who is overseeing the Mueller probe), Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who issued a statement on Saturday saying the commissioner “has always had the best interests of football at heart, both on and off the field” before adding the Washington organization “strongly endorses his efforts to eradicate domestic abuse and the independent investigation into the Ray Rice assault.” While another shoe could still drop — namely, if the league starts losing deep-pocketed sponsors — it seems like Goodell’s job is safe for now.

3. If you need some good news, the story of Cincinnati defensive lineman Devon Still continues to provide plenty of good vibes. Still, who was released in the final series of cuts in August, was brought back to the Cincinnati practice squad so he could continue drawing a paycheck to pay for treatments for his 4-year-old daughter Leah, who continues to battle pediatric cancer. The story got better this week, as the Bengals brought him up to the active roster — in addition, the team announced late Monday night they will donate all proceeds from sales of Still’s jersey to pediatric cancer treatment and research facilities at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. In two days, the Bengals sold 100,000 jerseys, making it one of the fastest selling uniforms in the history of the franchise. (Saints coach Sean Payton bought 100 jerseys on his own.) You can buy your own Devon Still jersey here, and you can follow Still on Twitter here — he tweets frequently about his daughter and their struggle with the disease.

4. While it’s not necessarily a must-win situation for the Patriots this week, the prospect of beginning the season 0-2 is less than appealing. New England is one of three teams who started the year as division favorites who lost its opener — Indianapolis and Green Bay were the other two. No matter how good you are, an 0-2 deficit is hard to crawl out of: Since 1990, 196 teams started the year 0-2, and only 23 of those teams made the playoffs, a rate of 12 percent. (For the record, one of those teams was the 2001 Patriots, who had an 0-2 start but went on to win the Super Bowl.) As was the case for most of New England, neither the Colts (who are home against the Eagles) or Packers (who host the Jets) sound overly worried about their situation. “Unfortunately, ‘almost’ doesn’t count in professional sports,” Luck said in the wake of a seven-point loss to open the season at Denver. The Chargers, Chiefs and Saints are three other 2013 playoff teams who lost their openers and could be 0-2 by the end of this week’s action.

5. While the 2014 season is still in its early stages, it was interesting to see five backs top the 100-yard rushing mark in Week 1, led by Knowshon Moreno’s 134 yards on the ground in a victory over New England. (In addition to Moreno, Dallas’ DeMarco Murray had 118 rushing yards, Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch had 110 yards, Houston’s Arian Foster had 103 yards and the Jets’ Chis Ivory had 102 yards.) After an offseason that saw what appeared to be a slight devaluation of the running back position (no back was taken in the first round of the draft, and arguably the best free agent deal went to Chris Johnson, who got a two-year, $8 million deal from the Jets), it represented something of an upgrade when compared to recent years. (By comparison, in Week 1 of last season, just three backs topped the 100-yard rushing mark.) It’s still early, but it will be interesting to see if the pendulum starts to swing in the other direction when it comes to the running back spot the rest of the season.

The Patriots announced Saturday night that linebacker Jamie Collins, defensive end Michael Buchanan and center Ryan Wendell have been downgraded to out for Sunday’s game against the Vikings.

Collins is in his second season, and the Southern Miss product has evolved into one of the more versatile defenders on the team. However, the 6-foot-3, 250-pounder popped up on the injury report late this week with a thigh injury, and will miss the first game of his career as a professional Sunday against the Vikings. The Patriots shuffled the back end of the depth chart at linebacker on Saturday, releasing Darius Fleming and adding Deontae Skinner from the practice squad — Skinner could be in for a lot of snaps come Sunday in Minnesota.

Also in his second year, the 6-foot-6, 255-pound Buchanan has struggled with an ample injury since the start of the season. The backup defensive end will miss his second game of the 2014 season as a result.

The 6-foot-2, 300-pound Wendell, who will sit with a knee problem, has been the starting center for the last two years, but was pushed this summer by fellow offensive lineman Dan Connolly. With the offensive line already in a bit of a state of flux, Connolly and rookie Bryan Stork (if he’s 100 percent) will likely share pivot duties on Sunday against the Vikings. That will also likely mean Marcus Cannon, Jordan Devey and Josh Kline will share work at guard.